Why is it that the seasons do not align with the beginning/end of the calendar year? For instance, winter in the northern hemisphere (summer in the southern hemisphere) runs from the beginning of December to the end of February. Why is this? I would have thought that when people were inventing calendars way back in the distant past that they would have aligned the beginning of the year with the changing of the seasons or maybe one of the solstices or equinoxes. But it seems like the change of seasons and solstices/equinoxes occur at kind of arbitrary times..
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The ELI5 simple answer is that calendars and years are human concepts.
Seasons are natural concepts. We named them but they occur naturally. Whereas years could start any time because there is no natural phenomena that signals a new year, other than a full rotation of the sun.
A year could start and end on any day whereas the seasons are fairly consistent.
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